Newly-minted Attorney General Jeff Sessions had a great week in the Unadorned Prejudice department, making headlines for strong-arming his feckless cabinet colleagues into gutting federal policies protecting transgender children from discrimination in public schools. On Thursday, Melissa McCarthy plaything Sean Spicer dropped a few more hints about Sessions' forthcoming agenda, announcing that he expected "greater enforcement" of federal laws prohibiting the recreational use of marijuana, even in states that have legalized it—a major departure from the Obama administration's more laissez-faire approach.

There is a big difference between that and recreational marijuana.
And I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction
crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last
thing that we should be doing is encouraging people. There is still a
federal law that we need to abide by in terms of the medical—when it
comes to recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.

Equivocating between the recreational use of marijuana, a non-addictive, natural substance, and the opioid epidemic, which is a legitimate national health emergency that has played a significant role in tripling the number of drug overdose deaths in the United States since 1999, is breathtakingly irresponsible at best and willfully misleading at worst. In fact, states with medical marijuana laws on the books have fewer overdose deaths and fewer prescription opioid users than states that do not, which means Spicer is arguing that illicit opioid use justifies cracking down on something that might actually help mitigate some of that opioid use in the first place.

Thursday's revelation came as news to Cory Gardner, a Republican senator from beautiful, bold, weed-loving Colorado, who pointedly revealed that prior to Sessions' confirmation hearings, the attorney-general-to-be had assured him behind closed doors that he would not interfere with state-level marijuana policy.

Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, where marijuana
production and distribution has become an established industry, spoke
with Sessions before his confirmation about the business in his state
and was assured there will be no sudden changes in policy.

“That was the take-away from my conversation with Jeff,” Gardner said.
“It’s not a priority of the Trump administration.”

Sessions faced a tough confirmation process in which he earned only one Democratic vote, so his willingness to mislead a moderate Republican like Gardner to shore up his support is unsurprising. Empty clandestine promises aside, though, in the words of the late Dennis Green, Jeff Sessions is who we thought he was. His virulent-to-the-point-of-perplexing opposition to legalization is well-established, and Department of Justice lawyers warned us that redirecting their time and resources in this manner would bury them under small-potatoes prosecutions and cripple efforts to bust larger-enterprise drug-smuggling operations. These details matter little to an uncompromising ideologue like Sessions, though, who apparently cares only about beating his Reefer Madness-era drum more loudly than ever.

Spicer concluded:

So I think there’s a big difference between medical marijuana, which
states have a—the states where it’s allowed, in accordance with the
appropriations rider, have set forth a process to administer and
regulate that usage, versus recreational marijuana. That’s a very,
very different subject.

It's remarkable how eagerly the Trump administration blows this repulsive "states' rights" dog whistle to justify taking civil rights from children, but has no interest in applying that same logic to recreational marijuana use—even though Trump has said before that he would respect the will of the voters in states that choose to legalize. Thursday's announcement again demonstrates that this White House adheres to no fixed, coherent set of principles, and will assert any argument—no matter how illogical, hypocritical, or disingenuous it may be—in the interest of political expediency.

Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. From award-winning writing and photography to binge-ready videos to electric live events, GQ meets millions of modern men where they live, creating the moments that create conversations.